Re: The sign of g

[Larry Smith <larry.smith@SNOW.EDU>]

At 4:04 PM -0400 9/3/02, Joe Heafner wrote:
> > From: Tina Fanetti <FanettT@QUEST.WITCC.CC.IA.US>
> >
> > How do I explain to a student that when we choose up (+y) to be
> > increasing, we say that the sign of g is negative, regardless of whether
> > the ball is going up or going down.
> Hi Tina.
> A gemoetric approach is best here. First of all, "g" has no sign really
> because it's the magnitude of a vector quantity. It's just a number that
> represents the magnitude of the gravitational
> acceleration near Earth's surface.


Or is it the local gravitational field strength?

Larry